


Gently Rise, Softly Call

by boorishbint



Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23190329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boorishbint/pseuds/boorishbint
Summary: Snufkin is not the marrying sort.
Relationships: Mumintrollet | Moomintroll/Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 29
Kudos: 182





	Gently Rise, Softly Call

**Author's Note:**

> It's my friend's birthday ♡ Happy birthday, lad

It’s a reckless, careless thing to say. Like a step made wrong on an unforgiving path, or putting something shiny out where Little My might see it. An act of such impressive thoughtlessness, that even now Snufkin can’t quite believe he’s managed it at all. While not a great believer in being _too_ careful, he’s always fancied himself at having a line somewhere in regards to should’s and shouldn’t’s.  
  
He’s not his father, after all. But he’s given the old codger a run for his empty pockets, as Snufkin has just sauntered quite merrily over his own line and into a great deal of trouble. Possibly the biggest of trouble one can get into, which is high praise indeed for even the Joxter had never managed it himself.  
  
What had happened, just moments ago when everything had been exceptionally lovely and good, is this: Moomintroll had been giving a rather apt impression of Little My, even sticking his nose up in that haughty way the wee Mymble fervently denies herself capable of. Perhaps that in itself is not so special, but they had been joking such a long while that the merriness had quite bubbled over.  
  
Snufkin lost himself entirely to a laugh at Moomintroll’s excellent rendition of My’s shrill scolding, pulling his hat over his face like it might help which it hadn’t.  
  
‘Oh, Moomintroll,’ Snufkin had said, laughing still because it really was so very funny to him. ‘If I were ever the sort for it, I’d have married you the first time you made me laugh because you really are so terribly good at it and I could never ask for a better reason to.’  
  
And just like that, line crossed.  
  
Snufkin doesn’t realise for a long, awful moment what exactly it is he’s let slip but once it starts to dawn, once the words call back to him from where they’ve marched merrily onwards without his sense in their pockets, Snufkin’s laughter cuts like a rope.  
  
He pulls his hat away from where it’s tilted down over his face, stares at where Moomintroll stares right back. His eyes are wide, paw hovering in the air as though he were reaching for something but it’s all been held up now. Held by Snufkin and his great, stupid mouth.  
  
‘I…’ Snufkin struggles to think of something; his thoughts have stopped, his heart has stopped. He’s very, very still and a Snufkin should never be so yet- ‘I mean… I just-’  
  
‘If you were ever… what kind of sort?’ Moomintroll asks him, quiet. Hopeful. Snufkin grabs the end of his scarf with both hands, a wretched nerve deep in his chest twisting like a screw.  
  
‘H-hardly matters,’ Snufkin stammers in reply, looking out across the grass. At where dragonflies flitter, blue and electric, over tall pussyfoots. ‘Forget I said anything.’  
  
‘I don’t want to forget,’ Moomintroll says which is very true of him and Snufkin can’t bear that either. He winces and Moomintroll comes closer, scoots through the grass. ‘Anything you say, ever. But definitely not that.’  
  
‘I wish you would,’ Snufkin replies tightly, feeling a stab of frustration he is not entitled to but it stings all the same. He wants Moomintroll to leave it but knows Moomintroll could never, and it feels rather like sticking one’s hands into a nettle bush. ‘I speak a great deal of nonsense, you know.’  
  
‘Yeah, I do. I have to listen to it more than anyone,’ Moomintroll says, a touch sarcastic to Snufkin’s ear and that tempts his frustration out with a frown, which he tosses at Moomintroll over his shoulder.  
  
‘Then all the more reason for you to forget this one. Give yourself a break,’ Snufkin says, pinched and fretful. He gets to his feet, brushes at the stray grass that sticks to his smock just for something to do with his hands. ‘I think I might walk.’  
  
‘Run away, more like,’ Moomintroll says, getting up after him and Snufkin’s patience snaps. He turns on the heel of his boot and heads away, faster than is polite but it matters very little when Moomintroll runs after him anyway. Moomintroll always does. ‘Snufkin! Snufkin, would you- stop, will you?’  
  
Snufkin does not stop and walks until the glen starts to bubble up from the ground with the roots of trees, their branches curled over as the wood starts again. Snufkin hops over a trickle of stream, narrow but deep.  
  
Just as he lands on the other side, he’s caught by the sleeve of his smock. Snufkin leans with the drag of it, body suspended over the stream with both feet on one side and Moomintroll on the other, paw holding to the end of Snufkin’s sleeve. Snufkin stares at his fingers, white and fluffy.  
  
‘Don’t go,’ Moomintroll says, pleading and Snufkin ducks his head, trying to hide beneath his hat.  
  
‘I’d like to go.’  
  
‘I’m asking you not to.’  
  
‘You’re holding me not to,’ Snufkin corrects, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull away and Moomintroll’s fingers tighten. Snufkin can feel the wool of his smock give way to it; little parts of Snufkin always seem to give way. ‘Not much answer I can give to a question with a lock.’  
  
‘I don’t think holding your hand counts as a lock,’ Moomintroll replies but Snufkin supposes Moomintroll wouldn’t think many things as closed in as they are. Creatures who build their own walls only ever see their doors, after all.  
  
‘What would you count it as?’ Snufkin asks, too anxious to be truly curious. If anything, the nervy knot in his gut has started to sprout thorns and they pull at him in a way that makes him strangely eager for a fight. Moomintroll is not very good at fights, Snufkin has learned. ‘It’s certainly no invitation.’  
  
‘Do you want an invitation?’  
  
‘To what? To stay?’  
  
‘I didn’t think you’d need an invitation for that,’ Moomintroll says and Snufkin risks looking at him then. He looks confused, dark eyebrows knotted together. ‘You’re always welcome.’  
  
Snufkin thinks he can stand the sweetness even less than the sarcasm. He goes to pull away, but the angle is so precarious. Moomintroll had been the only thing holding him steady and once his sleeve comes free, giving Moomintroll a fright as it goes, Snufkin finds himself teetering over the stream before falling.  
  
The world spins for that brief, lurching moment of falling but he stops- caught in Moomintroll’s arms. Snufkin looks up, not seeing much around the great width of Moomintroll’s snout but he’s been caught safely and tightly under the arms by Moomintroll’s own. They are wider, stronger and Snufkin knows that they are always open for him to fall into, just like this.  
  
‘Moomintroll,’ Snufkin says, as it’s all he can think of to say. His hands are where Moomintroll’s elbows bend and Snufkin pushes there, feels the give of thick fur and muscle beneath his fingers.  
  
‘Snufkin,’ Moomintroll answers, for that is the answer. ‘Are you alright?’  
  
No, Snufkin thinks but he’s also pretty sure Moomintroll knows that. Moomintroll may not be very good at rowing, (despite ample practice with Snorkmaiden over the years, not that Snufkin is cruel enough to mention that), but he very good at figuring Snufkin out. It’s dreadfully unfair, really, for Snufkin is only certain of Moomintroll up until he isn’t.  
  
Snufkin glances down and pushes himself upright against Moomitroll, boots stll balanced on the edge of the stream. ‘You’ve fallen in!’  
  
‘I don’t think it’s quite deep enough to fall into,’ Moomintroll replies, following Snufkin’s gaze to where his feet are submerged beneath the water, though only as far as his ankles. He must’ve stepped in the stream to catch Snufkin and Snufkin’s heart squeezes like a sponge, so tight that all the love wrings out.  
  
‘Deep enough that you may get a cold,’ Snufkin says, soaked in the fondness. ‘I’m not worth that.’  
  
‘You’re more than worth it,’ Moomintroll says stoutly, eyes bright in the Summer sun. ‘And I’d know that, too. I’ve gotten enough colds from waiting in the Spring frost for you.’  
  
‘That’s your choice,’ Snufkin says for it’s true and he’s also hoping he might get a laugh for it. When he doesn’t, the thorny bramble coiled tight inside of him pricks again. ‘Moomintroll?’  
  
Snufkin lets go of one of Moomintroll’s elbows to reach for his face. They’re at an unusual angle like this, with Snufkin still mostly up on the wee bank and Moomintroll in the water. It’s been a very, very long time since Snufkin’s had to look down at him. Just as his fingers brush the fine fur of Moomintroll’s cheek, does Moomintroll stop him.  
  
His paw is large, his fingers around Snufkin’s wrist like a bracelet and he holds Snufkin there, not quite touching his cheek and Snufkin can see them; the thoughts buzzing behind Moomintroll’s eyes, like bees around the flowerbed. Snufkin waits, lets Moomintroll hold him and decide.  
  
‘That thing you said, just before,’ Moomintroll says, slowly and carefully. Snufkin tenses, fingers curling in and Moomintroll’s grip on his wrist tightens, just slightly. But enough. ‘Did you mean it?’  
  
‘I didn’t mean to say it.’  
  
Moomintroll frowns at once. ‘That’s not really the same thing as not meaning it though, is it?’  
  
‘It ought to be the only meaning that matters,’ Snufkin says, glancing away and back again. He’s not sure where to go, not sure what to say. Snufkin doesn’t usually find himself in the position of not knowing much when the knowing is about Moomintroll.  
  
‘You’re not much of a creature for _ought to,’_ Moomintroll says and he smiles then, but it doesn’t soothe Snufkin the way it usually might and doesn’t last very long either. Moomintroll looks pensive. ‘Not really a creature for a lot of things.’  
  
Snufkin holds his breath, then lets it out with; ‘Think how much heavier I’d be if there were a lot of me.’  
  
‘I’d catch you anyway,’ Moomintroll replies, sounding resolute on that and Snufkin could never doubt him. ‘If you wanted to be a creature for… other sorts, you can be. If that’s, you know, something you would like.’  
  
‘I said if I were to be,’ Snufkin says, hastily. It rushes out of so all the words bundle up. ‘Not that I want to be.’  
  
‘I know, I just…’ Moomintroll trails off and looks away, looks at where he’s holding Snufkin’s wrist. How foreign, they look, all pressed together like that. Brown skin, pockmark freckles and clean, white fur. ‘If you were that sort. The- the marrying sort, that is. Would you really have asked me just for making you laugh?’  
  
Sometimes, right before the thunder rolls, lightning strikes first. The air will practically hum in anticipation, like an instrument being strung up before the note and the whole world waits to be filled with the blue light of it. Right now, this very moment between the two of them, feels awfully like that and Snufkin thinks the thunder is lurking.  
  
‘People have married for less,’ Snufkin says, breathless and unsteady. Moomintroll closes his eyes and moves Snufkin’s wrist, brings it around to the front of his snout. He breathes, right over Snufkin’s pulse and Snufkin’s stomach flips, hot on both sides.  
  
‘Would you marry for less?’  
  
‘Wouldn’t marry at all, remember?’  
  
‘But if you were to.’  
  
‘Were to and if to,’ Snufkin says, finding it hard to concentrate on anything but the way Moomintroll’s breath is so very hot on his skin. ‘They lead nowhere, you know. Those funny might-be thoughts are no more a path than one drawn in sand and washed away by things less clever than waves.’  
  
‘You do know all about paths,’ Moomintroll says to him, the words brushing past Snufkin’s wrist. Moomintroll’s large thumb rests over the tiny, frantic beat of Snufkin’s blood there.  
  
‘And you know all about marriages,’ Snufkin says and Moomintroll opens his eyes, looks up at Snufkin with his eyes questioning. ‘You grew up in one, after all.’  
  
‘I don’t know if that makes me an expert,’ Moomintroll replies and Snufkin ought to move his wrist away some, for he can barely concentrate with how warm it feels to have Moomintroll’s words so close to his skin.  
  
‘Almost walked through the door of another one with Snorkmaiden,’ Snufkin continues, sharper and Moomintroll’s question, whatever it may have been, vanishes. He raises his head and Snufkin misses the closeness at once.  
  
He does try, some days more than others, not to be jealous. After all, Snorkmaiden is she and he is he and neither much to do with the other except for- well, this. Snufkin knows Moomintroll didn’t hold her like this, knows they have shared many things Snorkmaiden will never and Snufkin knows there’s a great deal Snorkmaiden got that he’ll never be given either, so it really ought not to matter.  
  
Sometimes though, despite the time that has passed and the things that have changed, it does matter. A little, but a little is more than enough.  
  
‘That was mean,’ Moomintroll tells him and Snufkin winces, knowing so but not able to apologise for it. Moomintroll says nothing else, but his thumb moves. Grazes over Snufkin’s pulsepoint and Snufkin wonders if Moomintroll understands just how deep on the hook Snufkin is. Caught, well and truly.  
  
‘You should’ve let me go,’ Snufkin says, shaking his head. ‘I’m rotten today.’  
  
‘You’re not rotten,’ Moomintroll says, too sweet as always and Snufkin squeezes the furry elbow he’s still holding. Reassures himself with the way Moomintroll doesn’t budge at all.  
  
‘You could do better all the same.’  
  
‘Don’t want better. Only you.’  
  
‘Daft troll,’ Snufkin says, leaning forward to press his nose lightly to Moomintroll’s. Not quite a kiss, not a true one of the like Moomintroll has given him but Snufkin wants to be closer. Snufkin wishes he could smell particular things as well as Moomintroll can, but as it is all he can smell from Moomintroll is a familiar warmth. It fills his chest like water.  
  
‘You never answered my question,’ Moomintroll says, pressing forward. The end of his snout rises, presses his nose against Snufkin’s more truly. ‘About making you laugh.’  
  
Snufkin smiles despite himself. ‘It was not about making me laugh and you know it.’  
  
‘Part of it was.’  
  
‘And the other part?’  
  
‘The other part is still curious,’ Moomintroll says, leaning back and taking his kiss with him. Snufkin lingers, watches the way Moomintroll blinks up at him. ‘If we are talking of might-be’s, what might another good reason be?’  
  
‘Another good reason to marry you?’ Snufkin asks, just to be sure and Moomintroll’s cheeks start to fluff, the fur on end and Snufkin realises Moomintroll is beginning to blush under all that pelt. ‘Seems a silly might-be to ask about.’  
  
‘Humour me,’ Moomintroll offers and Snufkin laughs. ‘I did jump into a stream for you.’  
  
‘Oh, how wretched you are to play your own chivalry against me!’ Snufkin says to him and the paw on Snufkin’s wrist moves, slides up to hold Snufkin’s hand truly and their fingers lace together. ‘Is making me laugh not enough?’  
  
‘Plenty makes you laugh though,’ Moomintroll says and Snufkin hums the point. ‘I don’t fancy being lumped in with whatever other creature might get a laugh out of you. Not one for competition, even in a might-be.’  
  
‘Who could compete with you?’ Snufkin asks, teasing and Moomintroll gives a look. The look that says Snufkin isn’t being as funny as he thinks he is. ‘You win at a great many things.’  
  
‘Do I?’  
  
‘Won me over, didn’t you?’ Snufkin jokes but Moomintroll doesn’t look too convinced, as though he’s not sure how he even managed that much and it makes Snufkin laugh. ‘Do you remember the first time you made me laugh, Moomintroll?’  
  
Moomintroll shakes his head and Snufkin hums, warm with the memory. It greets him again as he thinks back on it, like taking the hand of that Snufkin from so long ago and letting himself be led.  
  
‘You weren’t very witty,’ Snufkin says and Moomintroll makes a noise of offence, but Snufkin keeps going. ‘But goodness, you said it with such earnestness. It’s very rare, you know, for a joke to be earnest. And how was I possibly to resist such a thing?’  
  
‘I think I fancy you less in this might-be,’ Moomintroll says, frowning again and Snufkin smiles at him, squeezing their fingers together.  
  
‘What a shame. Best make do with the definitely we have now than that might-be then.’  
  
‘No, I just-’ Moomintroll stops, seems to chew on his cheek, and starts again. ‘Would you really marry me just for a laugh?’  
  
‘A laugh is worth very much, Moomintroll,’ Snufkin says gently. ‘Especially to those who may not have had many. If marrying you were to keep that laugh with me, like a pin to my coat, I think I’d have been very hard to stop from asking.’  
  
‘But you never asked,’ Moomintroll says and that horrid twist of anxious returns, almost forgotten but Snufkin goes tense at once. They’re straying from the safety of the game, the might-be wandering awfully close to be _could-be._  
  
‘I told you,’ Snufkin replies, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘I’m not the sort.’  
  
‘The marrying sort.’  
  
There is a reason Snufkin has never mentioned it, even in jest. A reason lurking at the bottom of this might-be path that’s keep Snufkin long rooted to safer directions. It crops up now, unwelcome and Snufkin tries to shy around it but finds it impossible. Snufkin has never mentioned before because he has always been afraid of the answer to this;  
  
‘Do you wish I was?’ he asks and he tries not to show the disappointment, the rejection he feels before even turned away, but he can tell from the way Moomintroll shifts awkwardly he’s failed.  
  
‘I don’t want you to be anything but what you are,’ Moomintroll tells him, which is a perfectly sensible answer and perhaps if Snufkin were a sensible creature, he would take it. But there has been very little sense about today.  
  
‘That’s not what I asked you.’  
  
‘Snufkin, I…’  
  
What Moomintroll is, he never finishes. He keeps his eyes down, brows furrowed once more and the grip he holds on Snufkin’s hand slackens. Snufkin grips tighter, suddenly afraid. He pulls Moomintroll closer to the bank, closer to him and tries not to think too much.  
  
They don’t talk about it very often. If ever, really but truly is there any reason to? Snufkin knows how Moomintroll feels, Moomintroll knows how he feels and together they don’t need to say a word because it’s all so very obvious. Even if it took a long time for it to get there, but a path slowly taken is still taken, Snufkin feels.  
  
And truthfully, Snufkin is always afraid to. Coupledom to Moomintroll had always seemed so very set, until it quite suddenly wasn’t and it wasn’t too long after that Moomintroll had caught him against a tree during one of their games, breathless and desperate and Snufkin had known, at once, that things were about to change forever.  
  
He doesn’t want them to change again. Not when everything is so very perfect as it is.  
  
‘You’re growing up, Moomintroll,’ Snufkin tries to say, for it’s all he can think of. ‘And maybe I am, too. Hard to say for certain of ourselves, I think. But what I mean is that you are changing every time I see you, rushing on ahead with all sorts of grand things coming for you.’  
  
Snufkin lets Moomintroll’s paw go, moves his hand to Moomintroll’s chest and presses there. Presses through the fur, until he can just about feel the skin beneath. These secret, soft things of Moomintroll only love can show him.  
  
Snufkin takes a shaky breath. ‘I don’t think I shall be changing very much.’  
  
‘I don’t want you to change,’ Moomintroll says earnestly, putting a paw over the hand on his chest. His fingers are warm, they always are and twice as thick as Snufkin’s. ‘I like you the way you are.’

‘Lucky for you then, for I think I am set in stone.’

‘Is that so bad?’

‘Hard to move stone,’ Snufkin says, spreading his fingers. His thumb slips against Moomintroll’s littlest finger. ‘Even the sea can’t move a stone. It just washes a little bit away every time.’

Snufkin’s heart hurts with something familiar. An old bruise, caught in the crossfire.

‘The same stone and the same wave, over and over,’ he continues, mostly to himself. It all seems so very clear to him after all. ‘Like a circle.’

‘I like circles,’ Moomintroll says and Snufkin laughs again, though there isn’t any humour in it.  
  
‘No way out of a circle, Moomintroll,’ Snufkin says sadly, coming close again. Their noses nearly touch, but don’t. A lot of them has always been made up of _nearlys._ ‘Are you sure you can be happy with that?’  
  
‘With a circle?’ Moomintroll sounds confused. ‘Or with you?’  
  
‘Both, I would think if the circle and I were to be one and the same.’  
  
‘I’d have you if you were a square, triangle or indeed any other shape.’  
  
‘And what if you’d fancy me a different one?’ Snufkin asks, an edge to his voice and Moomintroll must notice, for his paws holds very tight to Snufkin’s hand then. ‘A different shape. A different sort. The marrying sort.’  
  
‘Snufkin, I-’  
  
‘Do you want to marry me?’ Snufkin asks, at last. At last.  
  
He can’t even look Moomintroll in the face. It’s too much, all of it too much and all his fault and he so he turns away. Shuts his eyes, for they are too close for the brim of his hat to come down far enough to hide him. He shuts himself away and waits, waits for what he knows is coming.  
  
‘I didn’t think it was ever an option,’ Moomintroll says after a long moment, sounding unsure. Snufkin still can’t look at him. ‘But I’d be lying if I told you it never crossed my mind.’  
  
Snufkin had been expecting it, but he still can’t think of anything to say. It goes quiet again and Snufkin wonders what to do, what to say but it’s so hard to think of anything past the rushing in his ears. The impending wave that’ll wash away more than their might-be and take their _right now_ with it, he fears.  
  
‘Snufkin,’ Moomintroll says, letting Snufkin go all over but only for a moment. Both paws come up to Snufkin’s face, hold it like a teacup. ‘Snufkin, will you look at me?’  
  
Snufkin has never been able to refuse him much and so he doesn’t now, looking at him through his eyelashes like that might help. Moomintroll is blurry, like this.  
  
‘If you want a yes or no, then the answer is yes,’ Moomintroll says, slowly and surely as if he’s given this some thought. Snufkin looks at him better, puts his hands to Moomintroll’s wrists. ‘But that doesn’t mean you have to.’  
  
Snufkin’s heart is beating so quickly. ‘But what if you ask me?’  
  
‘I wasn’t going to,’ Moomintroll replies, softly. A thumb moves over Snufkin’s cheek; a reassurance deeply needed. ‘I’ve all I need already.’  
  
‘Are you sure?’  
  
‘Pretty sure. Marriage isn’t that important, you know.’  
  
‘What is important?’  
  
‘Making you laugh,’ Moomintroll says, using his paws to guide Snufkin’s face to his. ‘Watching you sew patches on that old smock that don’t match. Being here when you come back. Touching you.’  
  
On that last note, their noses meet again. It’s a very proper kiss, in so much as a Moomin can give and Snufkin sinks into it. Let’s the intention blossom warm and good, lets it run down him like honey. Moomintroll’s nose is so very big at the end of his snout, his fluff reaches Snufkin’s cheeks and Snufkin adores him.  
  
‘I think that’s the closest to marriage I could ever need,’ Moomintroll says, moving his face to spread the kiss along Snufkin’s cheek. ‘Touching you. Having you be near, when you want to be. I don’t need you to choose me forever. It’s enough that you choose me at all and I will always be here for whenever you fancy that choice.’

The Moomintroll of their youth would never had said such a thing, for he would’ve doubted he’d meant it and Snufkin unsure to accept it. A part of Snufkin aches then, strangely missing the part of Moomintroll that used to ask him to stay. 

It’s a good sort of miss, though. The kind you’re sorry to say goodbye but glad to have had.   
  
Snufkin loves him. Has loved him for so many years and had to keep it secret for most of them. How indulgent it is, to love loudly at last and still, Snufkin can’t say it as often as he wants to. Even now, the words stick and he struggles around them, giving up and lunging forward instead.  
  
He wraps his arms around Moomintroll’s neck, loses his hat for his presses so close and buries his nose into the fur of Moomintroll’s neck. He slips from the bank and now they’re both standing in the stream, the water chilling but his boots are too well kept to let it in.  
  
Moomintroll holds him back. Around the waist like a belt and they are pressed together; pages in a book unread. Snufkin breathes, feels his chest expand against Moomintroll’s and wonders how it’s possible for such small bodies to hold something as grand and vast as love in the first place.  
  
‘My dear friend,’ Snufkin says, for he has never been able to call Moomintroll more than that despite everything that’s passed between since. ‘My most dear.’  
  
Snufkin presses a kiss to Moomintroll’s neck, with his lips pursed and heart pounding. Leans back and cups the width of Moomintroll’s face, his turn to take the cup and tries to think of what it is he wants to say.  
  
‘I think I could take a marriage,’ Snufkin says, bold and reckless once again. Emboldened by something poker-hot that tosses coals in his chest. ‘If that is what a marriage were to be.’  
  
‘I don’t see any reason it couldn’t be,’ Moomintroll replies, eyes crinkled in the way that Snufkin knows to mean he’s smiling even Snufkin can’t see his mouth from here. They’re back to normal, both in the water like this with Snufkin shorter once again. ‘If you were the sort for marriage, that is.’  
  
Snufkin gets the idea so quickly, it’s almost as if he’s had already once before and maybe forgotten. He kisses Moomintroll again, right on the end of his nose with his lips and hops away. He climbs back up the bank, scrambles around in the grass as Moomintroll watches him, baffled. So baffled he still doesn’t leave the stream and Snufkin returns to it, boots splashing and he fidgets with what he found.  
  
‘In this might-be,’ Snufkin says, turning the blade of long grass he has a few different ways. ‘This might-be that would be if I were the marrying sort and had asked you that very first time you made me laugh, I’d have been hard pressed for something to give you. Don’t carry much.’  
  
Snufkin holds up the grass when it’s finished; he’s tied it into a small ring, though it’s uneven and likely to come apart very quickly for grass isn’t much good for tying. Moomintroll stares at it, eyes going very wide.  
  
‘I’d have had to improvise,’ Snufkin says, holding a hand out. His fingers are shaking but when Moomintroll offers his paw, his white fingers are steady. Moomintroll is always so steady. ‘And I’d have taken you somewhere we could be quite alone to talk.’  
  
‘And what would you have said? In this might-be?’ Moomintroll says, though he must know but Snufkin understands.  
  
‘I think I’d tell you that I have something to ask you,’ Snufkin says, still shaking. Moomintroll squeezes his fingers, as though holding him together.  
  
It doesn’t work, for Snufkin quite suddenly falls apart.  
  
Snufkin’s shoulders drop, his eyes suddenly quite hot in their corners and he meets Moomintroll’s eye. The game has tapered off once again, the truth too pushy in its existence to ignore.  
  
‘But it’s only a might-be,’ Snufkin says sadly, a familiar turn in his stomach. Not unlike hunger, and for something that could never be found in this valley no matter how big the love is. Snufkin thinks of his father, then his mother. Thinks, strangely, of buildings he’s seen in towns far away. ‘I can’t offer you what I can’t give you, Moomintroll.’  
  
‘You don’t have to!’ Moomintroll says, hiding his disappointment quickly but not entirely and Snufkin’s heart breaks. ‘I wouldn’t want you to anyway.’  
  
Snufkin isn’t sure he believes him. ‘It wouldn’t have been like whatever you may have pictured with someone else.’  
  
‘I don’t picture my life with anyone else.’  
  
‘And what of the picture you have with me?’ Snufkin asks, desperate and he holds Moomintroll’s paw so very tightly. ‘There’ll be no house, except for whatever one you might build. I won’t live in it.’  
  
‘You don’t have to,’ Moomintroll says but there’s more, oh. There’s so much more and Snufkin can’t stop it for he doesn’t want to offer a might-be, suddenly afraid it would be too lovely a thing compared to what Snufkin reckons _will be._ _  
_ _  
_ ‘I won’t live in your house, Moomintroll. I couldn’t,’ Snufkin says, rushing and breathless. Moomintroll puts his free paw to Snufkin’s cheek and the tears bloom hotter, threatening to fall. ‘But I will stay in your bed, if you’ll have me there. And there won’t be children or the marriage you planned.’  
  
Moomintroll says nothing so Snufkin keeps going.  
  
‘But there will be me,’ he says, meaning nothing more than this. ‘In all I can give. There’ll be fish for your table and songs for your Spring. I will not always be here but- but if you’ll have me, I will always come back. I promise.’  
  
Moomintroll is very quiet, and looks very thoughtful. He holds Snufkin a moment longer before he moves. He gives them some space, though Snufkin is loath to let him, and brings Snufkin’s hand down. In his tension, Snufkin has completely crushed the bit of grass he’d woven and it falls to the stream as Moomintroll gently opens out his fingers.  
  
With his hand splayed out as Moomintroll directs, Snufkin watches as Moomintroll wraps his longest finger around Snufkin’s own ring one. It’s awkward, as Moomintroll’s fingers are so much thicker but Snufkin’s are so narrow that it works much the same.  
  
‘How about no promises?’ Moomintroll says, looking at their fingers. ‘I don’t need one. You say you’ll come back and I believe you.’  
  
Moomintroll squeezes the finger he’s wrapped his own around.  
  
‘Maybe you would’ve improvised, had this been something else and you a different sort of creature,’ he continues gently and Snufkin blinks through the water in his eyes. ‘But I don’t have to.’ Moomintroll moves their fingers. ‘You and I have always been enough with just us.’  
  
Snufkin struggles to catch his breath.  
  
‘Moomintroll…’  
  
‘Snufkin,’ Moomintroll replies, as always. Catches Snufkin’s name like he catches Snufkin in everything. Not like a snare- but much the way a sail catches a wind.  
  
‘Wonderful creature,’ Snufkin calls him, coming in close once more. Moomintroll opens his arms, lets Snufkin into them like he lets Snufkin into so many things. ‘My wonderful creature.’  
  
‘I’ll remember you called me that next time you’re cross with me.’  
  
‘I could never be cross with you.’  
  
‘Now that right there, that’s not even in the realms of ever being a might-be,’ Moomintroll laughs and he shakes all over from it. Snufkin bounces in his arms, adoring. ‘That’s just a straight up _never happening.’_  
  
‘Now, now,’ Snufkin says to him, words pressed to the fur. ‘You should have more faith in yourself.’  
  
‘I have plenty of faith in myself. It’s your fussiness over your fishing wire that’s lacking.’  
  
Snufkin pulls away just enough to puck at him, but it’s too soft a thing to be worth much. It’s then entirely undone but Moomintroll taking him by the waist again, hoisting him up out of the stream like a nothing. Water flies from the ends of his boots and Snufkin puts a hand to head with habit to stop a hat that isn’t there falling.  
  
‘Moomintroll!’  
  
‘Now, get out of this stream or all my gallantry will be undone!’ Moomintroll adds, carrying Snufkin back up the bank.  
  
Snufkin lets him, laughing as Moomintroll presses his snout to Snufkin’s chest for kisses. Truly, Snufkin thinks he’d let Moomintroll do so many things. He’s just the sort of creature for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Listened to this on loop while writing, obsessed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx0u8TmU9Yg


End file.
